I’m playing the control deck. I feel I have a chance, but I’m worried about Gigadrowse.
G1: He goes first. He gets a T1 Lotus Bloom. T4 he goes for it and I have no counterspell, but he only gets 3 Dragons. I have Crux of Fate in hand but die before I can get to turn 5. Just needed one… more… turn.
G2: He gets a T2 Lotus Bloom. I wait to thoughtseize until the turn before the Lotus Bloom unsuspends, but I’m stuck on 2 lands. He remands my Thoughtseize. So I play it again. He remands it a 2nd time. During my following upkeep, Gigadrowse taps my lands so I still can’t thoughtseize (no swamp off the top). He endsteps with Telling Time, feeling a bit desperate to find something… and he does. Gets 3 Bogardan Hellkites on turn 6, avoiding my delayed thoughtseize and kills me the next turn. I’m still at 2 lands. Guess I should’ve thoughtseized a turn earlier but I didn’t imagine the double remand scenario!
G3: Time for the comeback. Lots of new sideboard cards in. He gets T2 Lotus. T4 I duress and take one of TWO gigadrowses. I counter his telling time. Around maybe turn 11, I play Icefall Regent and he still hasn’t found Dragonstorm. Eventually he has to start playing Gigadrowse just to tap the Icefall Regent and stay alive, but I finally finish him off. He checks: next card was Dragonstorm. He’s now at 2-1.
G4: He mulligans into a T1 Lotus. I miss a land drop then start drawing lots of lands. I play a Stratus Dancer (morph guy who counterspells when he morphs.) T5 he tries to kill the attacking dancer by flashing in Teferi (sideboard card) but I dissolve it. Mo’better – he had to pop his Lotus to play Teferi, he was low on lands. Then I play Icefall Regent, he has 5 lands now. T7 he plays Gigadrowse to stay alive, but because of the Stratus Dancer, he has to target my Icefall Regent twice to make sure it taps and doesn’t kill him, which leaves me just enough mana to counter his Seething Song when he has to try to go off the following turn. He fizzles out, I win. Dragonstorm 2-2.
G5: The big finale. He gets stuck on 2 land. I play Silumgar on turn 6, he’s still at 2 lands. Later I play the OTHER Silumgar. One of them has hexproof, which will matter a lot later on. It comes to a crucial moment where he has only 3 lands, a Lotus Bloom with 2 counters, and a bunch of cards in hand. He’s at 14. I have 8 lands and draw Ugin. This was the first game I sided it in, thinking of it as a possible finishing spell if I can’t get that last damage through. I also have tons of instant removal spells, and Crux of Fate, and I’m at 22 life. But in 3 turns – if he can gigadrowse me down to one mana so I can’t play instant speed removal, and then combo off on his turn, I’ll lose. But – to gigadrowse that much mana, he’d have to use the Lotus Bloom AND have drawn some more land AND I’d have to not draw more land myself (many of my lands enter tapped). Right now he only has 3 lands and a suspended Lotus Bloom. If he gigadrowses me and goes off but DOESN’T kill me I’m fine thanks to Crux of Fate. I get real focused on the Gigadrowse plus land draw scenarios and decide I need to speed up the clock, so I tap out to play Ugin. I attack him with both creatures (6 damage) and hit him with Ugin for 3 more. Now he’s at 5. I mean, he only has 3 lands, right? What can go wrong? On his turn, he topdecks land #4, which he needs, and is able to play Dragonstorm with a storm count of 4, get 2 Hunted Dragons and 2 hellkites, and kill me. But here’s the line I missed, and why I punted the match. Playing Ugin or not playing Ugin was a tough call (probably shouldn’t have) but given that I DID play Ugin, I should’ve left my Hexproof 3/6 Silumgar back as a blocker. I would’ve put him to 8 life instead, still threatening lethal next turn. The Silumgar would’ve blocked a Hunted Dragon and kept me alive. He would’ve needed a storm count of 5 to kill me, even less likely. But I didn’t see that line. And gave him exactsies. I punted! Dragonstorm wins 3-2.